Wednesday, March 15, 2017

I've been in this weird place between too much activity, too many ideas and not enough time. Thus I've got a whole series of posts written in my mind yet I've got to pause them and whine about myself.It's my body. It's betraying me.The betrayal in minor in nature, at this juncture. It's hives. It might sound like nothing and in fact it started out as sort of a rather run of the mill "Hmmm I wonder what I touched that I'm allergic to" sort of thing.Then it continued, and got worse.The hives arrive in swaths, on my arms, my legs, my back, my butt, my abdomen and now this week my neck and face. They arrive intermittently and leave after I get to the point where I think "OK NOW I REALLY CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE" they simply fade away. They come they go. They arrive when I'm working, when I'm walking, when I'm dining. They erupt during work outs and fade away as it suits them to do. I'm in some sort of hell driven by burning, itching patches of skin that are driving me mad.I've been a good sport these past few weeks. I have complained intermittently. If you're on my Facebook it might feel like I've been complaining constantly but rest assured, if that were the case you'd have removed me by now. In fact I'd be over there complaining this very instant if that were the case. But my foresight in complaining on Facebook and taking pictures actually provided me with very good documentation and timeline for my doctor, even if it was peppered with commentary like "IT WAS MUCH WORSE THAN THIS I PROMISE YOU" when I shared it with him.

It's been going on for weeks and basically according to the internet I'm going to die a horrible death. That's pretty much all I could discern. I tried apple cider vinegar and essential oils but alas science had to come into it and thus I sat in Dr Sexy van Gogh's office today. (That's what we call him).

I was fortunate to be having a righteous flare up that he was able to watch come to life on my arm. He asked me a bunch of questions including some that may in fact end up being pertinent.

Does Benadryl make it go away? Yes - for a while.

Am I allergic to anything? Yes - I AM ALLERGIC TO ALL THIINGS THAT GROW ON THE EARTH

The latter is only a slight exaggeration. I'm the person that when allergy testing is done they can't exactly tell what I'm allergic to because the test they do on your back just causes my entire back to become one huge swollen hive. "All the things," is pretty much my diagnosis. The things which grow in the earth and the things which have hair and live on the earth - I am allergic to them. I am allergic to beef. I have ISSUES clearly.

An autoimmune disorder is a possibility however, usually autoimmune related hives don't respond to antihistamine as they are NOT histamine related. This isn't an absolute but - it's most often true.

I have to admit that autoimmune thing has me spooked. My mom had various autoimmune issues and I'm terrified of walking her path due to a bad DNA load that I can't avoid.

So he took many vials of blood and is running the gauntlet of bloodwork to see if anything jumps up. He's changed my medicine to basically keep me on one antihistamine or another at all times. With a dose of another antihistamine thrown in.

While we talked, he explained that if it's an easy diagnosis and treatment we'll just devise it and go from there. If it's complicated he'll send me to the right specialist depending on what the tests say.

His opinion is that because I'm what he calls "Hyper-allergic" (fancy medical talk for allergic every damn thing) that one of my allergies has chosen to express itself in a different way. I personally might have opted for interpretive dance or mixed media art but I guess I don't get to choose.

I'm sitting here zoned out on the antihistamine he told me to take earlier and realizing I'm gonna go full zombie when I take one at bed time. I was going to go run but I don't see that happening. In fact the idea of finding pajamas to put on becomes more and more dear.

I'm just hoping I'm not fucked in some irreversible way. This is not fun.